Hi all. I'm an American living in Wales. (I've been here two years.) Well, I just found out one of my friends from the States is going to be studying in England for a semester come Sept. I'm so excited! What I want to do is make her a "Welcome to the UK!" gift pack. Now, she's going to be coming straight from America so she's not gonna be missing her fav foods and stuff right away. And I wouldn't be able to get them myself being in Wales! So what can I include??? I've gotten a couple of ideas from some of the other posts including things like:

a maptravel blogslang dictionaryand vouchers

I also thought it would be an idea to make a sort of "guide to shopping in the uk" including which stores are which and where to find stuff. Does anyone have any ideas on how to improve these ideas and what else I can do? She'll be here for about four months and will be visiting Wales while she's here as well. What do you think? Help!

Anything that you had trouble with when you first moved there. How to deal with public transportation, the health care system, if there's anything odd about shopping.For example, I'm an American living in Canada, and the grocery stores here aren't nearly as comprenhensive in non-grocery items as they are in the States, so if I were putting something together, I'd mention that if you're looking for cleaning supplies, you'll find a better selection at store X than store Y. And I'd definitely explain the whole milk-in-bags phenomenon. Here in Ontario, there's a phone number you can call for health questions (dial a nurse or something) so if you have something like that, that would be great.

And how about a list, or actual examples of, neat things you can get in UK that you can't in the States? Your favorite Cadbury candy bars or McVities biscuits or something. Sort of 'things you must try'.

A giant union jack, and some mystical initiation ceremony including english ale and a roast dinner

Yeah, perhaps a delia extract of cooking the perfact roast dinner

By the way, be careful of slang dictionarys. They're sometimes very wrong. I once read one that said 'to get knocked up' meant to be woken up lmao. I'd love to see someone use that with their english parents in law - 'yeah, so then next morning I knocked my daughter up' rofl

Could do a mix-tape/ cd- best of British music? Maybe not just the old 'classics' like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but some more modern stuff. Check out www.nme.com for modern British music. Could add some Welsh music too: Stereophonics, Super Furry Animals, Funeral for a friend, Manic Street Preachers... you may want to avoid Charlotte Church and Tom Jones though

OH! If you're in the Uk over the summer, go to a music festival, bit late for Glasto now, maybe Reading/ Leeds.

Ooh, ale in the sunshine, good call. I think the initiation ceremony should also involve marmite and toast eating... ho ho. (I'm sure that only British people (occasionally Australians too) eat it)

Im English and living in Canada and the things I definitely miss most about England are Boost chocolate bars and nik naks and space invaders crisps. Canadians are always baffled when i tell them the different flavours of crisps they have in England so you should definitely include some strange ones in her gift like branstons lamb and mint or ham and mustard! and H& M is a must for shopping, I miss it so much, if only they had online shopping.

Im English and living in Canada and the things I definitely miss most about England are Boost chocolate bars and nik naks and space invaders crisps. Canadians are always baffled when i tell them the different flavours of crisps they have in England so you should definitely include some strange ones in her gift like branstons lamb and mint or ham and mustard! and H& M is a must for shopping, I miss it so much, if only they had online shopping.

Yeah good point, and I've heard that even though we have the same brands, some things especially sweets are meant to taste very differently, like mars bars... And do they have nobby's nuts in america?

teehee nobby's nuts rock! nope they don't have em in the states. i'm american and been living in uk for about 2 years. definitely should tell her that places like john lewis have crafting/sewing stuff, cause i'd have never thought to look in a dept. store! also let her in on the squash phenomena, i can't get enough lemon squash!!

First of all... no marmite. You want her to stay in England, right? Maybe you wouldn't need a comprehensive slang dictionary, but at least the essentials. (Example: saying 'p' for pence.) The phrases that seem too obvious to include, such as 'cheers' (I was confused why people kept saying this to me when I clearly was not drinking.) and 'queue up' (sp?) may be the most helpful at first. Also, if you know what she's into (music, theater, etc.), it would be very cool of you to search the net or newspapers & magazines for a minute and find out what might be going on in her city while she's there and throw together a little travel pamphlet highlighting her 'can't miss' events. Hmmm...also, include some advice (or your own experiences) on places to go for daytrips and weekend getaways.